We are now at the stage where when we go to the allotment we only stay for a couple of hours or so. There is no longer any urgency to complete jobs.
There are only a couple of beds that haven’t been dug over and just one left to weed. That’s the bed where we are having the manure dropped off.
Hopefully this will keep on coming until we decide that we have enough.
We had another load delivered last week.
We are continuing to cover beds with weed control fabric and as manure arrives, piles are being heaped on top of the fabric. This has the dual purpose of helping to hold the fabric in place, and when it has rotted down over winter, it can be tipped onto the beds once the fabric is removed and incorporated into the soil.
I mulched the strawberry bed with some compost. It was some multipurpose compost that we bought to pot up plants, but we weren’t impressed with it, and decided this was a good way to use it up.
The path between the fruit trees is well used and was becoming muddy, so Martyn covered it with a fresh layer of wood chippings.
We dug up the remaining beetroots.
Like many other things this year some of the roots are very small but they will be fine to use as baby beets.
Now that the clocks have been changed the light is fading as we complete our afternoon walks.
We decided on a repeat visit to Clumber Park, this time taking our digital cameras with us, however, we still prefer to use an iPhone for landscape photography.
In my last post describing our previous week’s visit to Clumber Park, I mentioned that the birds on the lake were just too far away to capture using the camera on my iPhone. The iPhone is great for scenic photos and close-up shots but the zoom isn’t up to the challenge of photographing distant wildlife so last week we returned with our old fashioned cameras that have a brilliant zoom capability.
We expected that the birds wouldn’t put in an appearance but we were lucky.
Stand by for photo overload.
A grey heron was perched at the far side of the lake. The one on the right was taken at Nostell earlier in the week.
The little egret is a member of the heron family. The one below was preening whilst perched in the centre of the lake. It was standing on a small piece of wood so some precision landing must have been required.
Little egrets first arrived on the south coast of England in 1989. The first recorded breeding was in 1996. Since then their range has extended northwards. The first recorded breeding in Yorkshire was in 2009. It’s now a resident of the UK and is spotted in Yorkshire throughout the year.
The great crested grebe was a more challenging subject. Not only does it move through the water quickly but usually dives below the surface as soon as a camera is trained on it. Where it will emerge is anyone’s guess.
I used the burst facility on my camera so I ended up with dozens of shots, many just of the whirlpool left behind as the bird dived under the water.
Young great crested grebes are often referred to as humbugs due to their stripy heads.
Cormorants were in their favourite resting place, perched at the top of a dead tree in the middle of the lake. They are another diving bird. When moving through the water most of the cormorant’s body is submerged with just its head and neck above the surface. This is a good impression of a mini Loch Ness monster. After they have been diving the birds find a perch and open out their wings to dry.
The birds perched on the dead tree are young birds as they are browner than the adults and have speckled chests.
There were plenty of ducks. The ones below are all males. On the left is a tufted duck which like the grebe and cormorant dives underwater to feed. On the right are mallards which are dabbling ducks and are often seen with their heads under water and their tails in the air.
You can’t miss the flocks of black headed gulls not only due to the numbers but also due to the noise they make. All that remains of their chocolate brown (not black) head over winter is a brown spot on each side of the head.
A video is posted hereNovember 2025 Video
Well that’s all for this week so as always until next time stay safe and stay well.
